Flare by emmyoop
LD46 - Flare
A unique coop puzzle game. Can be played alone but is better with a friend.
Objective
Make it through the 3d maze before the time runs out and your flame fizzles out.
Challenge
Player 1 (top window) can only see the maze from a top view and player 2 (bottom window) can only see the maze from a side view.
Controls
| Action | Top Down View/Top Screen | Side View/Bottom Screen | |---|---|---|---|---| |Pause | Escape Key | Escape Key | |Switch Controls | Space Bar | Space Bar | | Left | left arrow | A | | Right | right arrow | D | | Up | up arrow | W | | Down | down arrow | S |
Builds
Mac and Windows Downloads available WebGL Build is buggy. It seems to always work in Windows. When playing the WebGL Build on a Mac, you'll need to zoom your browser in then out after the game loads. It's a weird bug that we're still working on fixing. Hopefully soon!
Times are pretty crazy... We're a husband and wife team finishing up our third game jam together. We have two little kids who definitely add an extra level of difficulty to game dev in 72 hours but we wouldn't have it any other way!
Seriously, times are pretty crazy.
| Youtube | https://redowlgames.itch.io/ld46 |
| Youtube | https://redowlgames.itch.io/ld46 |
| Youtube | https://redowlgames.itch.io/ld46 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/flare |
Ratings
| Overall | 1462th | 3.389⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1659th | 3.111⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 178th | 3.944⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 2163th | 3.056⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1560th | 3.37⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 752th | 3.462⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1697th | 2.4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 940th | 3.538⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
The visuals don't always work too well in conveying the depth of the level, but the light emitted by the flame is pretty helpful. It looks relly good overall.
The audio is unobtrusive and underlines the games mood quite well.
Relly enjoyed figuring out the way it works and playing this game, but I still can't quite wrap my head around it completely ^^. Good job overall!
I could pass some levels, but I don't fully understand the mechanics :( maybe partly because it was buggy? It seems to be fun, but I should understand it for that :(
- Great moody feel to the game, the lighting and effects were excellent
- Music is great and fits well with the theme you two were going for
- Love the idea. I could totally see being an awesome game to play with my girlfriend
## Things I did not enjoy:
- Biggest thing is I couldn't wrap my head around how to control. The views don't convey depth very well and it's hard to tell that the two screens are the same Level. I only got past the first two levels, and it was more by trail and error than understanding of the concepts.
- Menu art could use some tweaks, but this is a small critique. My game doesn't even have a menu or pause button haha.
One tip I'll add is to reference other 3-D puzzle games like captain toad here. Often before the level starts they do a rotation around the level so you get a sense for what you're looking at. I think this could do a lot to help the player gain perspective on the level.
By the way, on the menus (both the main menu and the restart menu) on the web version, you have to click a little bit above each of the buttons. (so if you click on start, you actually end up hitting game info).
As others have said, it was weird having to press Space to switch to the other controls. You should have either let us control the flare at the same time without switching, or have the controls mapped to the same buttons (then a switch would have made sense).
I also have to agree with the others that depth was difficult at times, however I don't think it was too bad, because the light given off by the flare helped with the perception (clever use of the light!). I imagine this would be extremely fun to play with another player over the internet, such that you can't see the other person's screen and they'd have to guide you at times.
Great entry!
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Fire animation is dope. It's smooth and flame, I can't say too much about the other objects, I'd improve them by adding some visible textures on them. I really like how the shadows are working, it brings a lot of atmosphere in it.
Music
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Main menu music is good, the only thing I'd fix in it are high frequencies of that pan-flute(?), I would lower their volume a little bit so they sound softer.
Main theme sounds really good and calm, tribal-ish, it matches the game mood
Gameplay
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It's tough to understand the mechanics first, it breaks your head and I like it. I rarely see puzzles nowadays and something like that is a fresh air.
There is something wrong with the buttons tho, I couldn't press the Restard button and the Start button is misplaced for some reason. And one time when I restarted the game I had some weird stuff going on.
Overall it's a quite promising puzzle and co-op makes it even better. It has something to improve for sure but main mechanics are fine and fun playing.
